Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 05, 2023

Palestinian zero sum game: "Israeli embassy in Manama is an attack on Palestinians"

One of the consequences of the Arab honor/shame culture is the zero-sum mentality. If one party is honored, then their rival is considered shamed, even if there is nothing in reality that shames the other party.

This is illustrated by the statement issued today by the PFLP terror group.

The PFLP announced that "the opening of a headquarters for the Zionist embassy in the Bahraini capital, Manama, represents a state of increasing decline of the Bahraini regime" and hat continued normalization between Israel and Bahrain is "an integral part of the aggression against our people."

Has Bahrain turned anti-Palestinian? I don't see any evidence of it. But to Palestinians, if Israel gains something, then they lose - by definition.

It is a very childish way of looking at the world but it is accepted as normal, at least for Palestinians and most Arabs.

A great part of the profound changes happening in the Gulf, and the reason that the Abraham Accords are so important, is that they represent a sea change in the old zero-sum mentality, and towards a win/win culture in the UAE and Bahrain. There is no contradiction between having relations with Israel and supporting Palestinian nationalism, unless you look at everything as zero-sum - or if you view a Palestinian state not as a goal but as a means to destroy Israel.

The PFLP goes on "warn of the dangers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia embarking on normalization with the Zionist entity, especially since there are channels that have been opened in the sports and media fields, in addition to opening Saudi airspace for the passage of Zionist planes, which paves the way for the possibility of announcing full normalization with this entity. This would represent a major stab wound to the Palestinian cause."

If Israel wins, Palestinians lose - and vice versa. Which partially explains the celebrations and glee that accompany terror attacks that kill Jews. To Palestinians, any dead Jew is a loss for Israel and therefore a gain for Palestinians.

It is a sick mindset. And not enough people are fighting against it. Which is another reason why the Abraham Accords is so important - it introduces a different way of thinking into the Arab world, one that is attractive both because it is more optimistic but also because it is true.

It is worth mentioning that while the West generally adheres to a win/win mentality, socialists like the PFLP and those in the "progressive" Left indeed do believe in a zero-sum game - that the world has a fixed amount of resources and if the rich gain, the rest of the world inevitably loses. Simplistic and ultimately wrong zero-sum thinking is something that the far Right and far Left have in common.

It cannot be a coincidence that the main fans of zero sum thinking also happen to hate Jews. I don't know whether that is a cause or an effect, probably both, but eradicating the zero sum mentality is perhaps the best and most comprehensive way to combat antisemitism.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

An ironic fatwa: Muslims can curse Jews but not "Israel"

Recently, a new website has been indexed on Google News, called Sinai Arabia.

It is not a very professional site and it really doesn't cover news, rather items of interest to the Arab Muslim reader.

I cannot tell what country it comes from. My best guess is Egypt.

A lot of its stories are about Jews, many of them antisemitic but written in a matter of fact way rather than with rancor. So it will discuss things like how the final battle between Muslims and Jews will happen, or how the Rothschild family controls 80% of the world's wealth.

Today, it describes Islamic law on cursing of Jews and Israel. And according to this article, it is perfectly allowed for a Muslim to curse Jews, but not to curse Israel!

Cursing Jews (or Christians) is allowed since they are unbelievers. Allah cursed the Jews in the Quran because of their disobedience to Allah and their supposed attacks on and hatred of prophets.

But Israel may not be cursed - because it was the name of Jacob, who is a revered prophet, and one may not curse the name of a prophet even if it is also the name of a hated Jewish state!

If this article is accurate, then from the perspective of cursing, the Muslim attitude is that it really is antisemitism, not "anti-Zionism." And by any religious yardstick, hating Jews is the reason for hating Israel - not the other way around.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the Houthi slogan says "Curse the Jews" but only "Death to Israel."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

One of the Hamas terrorists arrested by Israeli forces in Jenin on Monday was Abdallah Hassan Muhammad Zubah. He is known to be one of the major forces behind the nascent West Bank rocket firing attempts.

There have been several attempts to fire rockets over the past few months into Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. They've so far either misfired or landed away from the Jewish targets.

The luck won't hold out forever. The genie is out of the bottle and Hamas and other terror groups have plenty of experience building rockets which they are anxious to transfer to the West Bank.

As unacceptable as it is to have large arsenals of rockets in Gaza (and Lebanon) aimed at Jewish communities, in some ways rockets in the West Bank would be worse. Their targets are often very close by, and unlike with Hamas or Hezbollah, Israel has no government to pressure to stop the rockets from being fired - just as with in the West Bank can easily get M16s, they will soon be able to put together crude rockets.

Right now, Israeli forces can arrive on the scene of a terror attack within minutes in Judea and Samaria. It can pro-actively stop rocket launchers being setup if it has proper intelligence. But if Israel would unilaterally withdraw from areas of those territories, each incident becomes an invasion.

This is reason by itself that unilateral withdrawals, or a Palestinian state even on provisional borders, is a supremely bad idea.

But the rocket fire will come, sooner rather than later. Jewish communities will be threatened. The same "primitive" rockets with a two-mile range that reach Sderot from Gaza can also reach the suburbs of Netanya from Tulkarm.

Not enough people are considering the dangers of West Bank rockets - and the media won't care until they kill someone. If even then.

Now is the time that Israel needs to pro-actively let the media and world leaders know that any rocket that injures or kills an Israeli will prompt a massive response that can cause unpredictable results. The PA needs to be pressured by its international friends to step up its presence in the "refugee camps" and other areas it has effectively ceded to Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups.

Because otherwise, as always, the world will be fixated on the "disproportionate" response more than the rockets themselves.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

09/04 Links Pt2: Nazi and Soviet Conspiracy Themes in the Palestinian Discourse; How Intra-Communal Eritrean Violence Was Used To Malign Israel

From Ian:

Irwin Cotler: ‘I have a dream’: Martin Luther King's words are more relevant than ever

We all stood amid this brotherhood of humanity, rapt with attention as King told of his dream of an America in which his four little children would not be judged “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”.

King spoke of the American Constitution as a promissory note. In his uniquely melodious and spiritual voice, he spoke movingly. Even 60 years later, Martin Luther King’s voice still resonates within me today.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”

King’s message was a universal one of common cause wherever we may be – of the struggle against racism, against hate, against injustice – and the struggle for human rights, for human dignity, respect, and recognition.

Indeed, Martin Luther King Jr. ought to be seen as the metaphor and the message of this struggle of his recognition that we are all one human family; that we have all been created in the image of God, and that this is the foundation of equality; that respect for the inherent dignity of the human being requires respect for the equal dignity and equal worth of all persons; that this is what human brotherhood is all about; that the struggle for human rights and human dignity, for equality and respect, are (in the most profound and existential sense) the struggle for ourselves. For in what we say – or more importantly, in what we do – we make a statement about ourselves as people.

On this 60th anniversary, let us recall, then, that Martin Luther King Jr. – like Nelson Mandela, who later invoked him – was the embodiment and expression of the long march towards freedom, of the great struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries for equality, for human dignity, for social justice and for the brotherhood of man.

King was the architect of the politics of inclusion, equality, respect, and recognition – not only for Black Americans; not only for America, but for all of humanity. As he expressed in his “Letter from a Birmingham jail,” also 60 years ago, in 1963 we must affirm and act upon.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

May this clarion call to action inspire us as we continue to strive toward realizing King’s vision in the next 60 years and beyond.

Golda’s grit and Nixon’s ambivalence

Alexander Haig, Nixon’s chief of staff, reported in his memoir Inner Circles, Nixon’s sense of urgency in coming to Israel’s aid. Nixon summoned both Kissinger and James Schlesinger (a Jewish convert to Christianity), Secretary of Defense, to a White House meeting assessing the pace of the much needed airlift requested by Golda. Nixon asked Kissinger for an exact account of Israel’s military needs. Kissinger began reading from an itemized list. “Double it,” ordered Nixon. “Now get the hell out of here and get the job done.”

In another such meeting, Nixon informed about bureaucratic disagreements in the Pentagon over types of delivery planes, shouted at Kissinger “(expletive) it, use every one we have. Tell them to send everything that can fly.”

Though Nixon was in the throes of fighting the Watergate charges, in June, 1974, two months before he resigned his presidency, he became the first incumbent president to visit Israel. In his expansive airport tribute (no doubt with Golda in mind) Nixon said, “the respect and the admiration we have for the people of this nation, their courage, their tenacity, their firmness in the face of very great odds… makes us proud to stand with Israel.”

In sum, this president haunted by the specter of disloyal American Jews, had little to gain and much to lose by the bold steps he took in Israel’s defense less than a year earlier. None of this courage and defiance of the US State Department is documented in the biopic Golda.

In the absence of the astonishing 567 missions flown by the US air force, Israel might not have survived. Already in his second term (regardless of Watergate), Nixon knew that Republicans were not going to win over the largely liberal Jewish vote. Nixon’s unconventional airlift subsequently spurred an Arab oil embargo sharply raising gasoline prices.

Dismissing the advice of Kissinger, his Jewish adviser, Nixon risked a war with the Soviet Union to save Israel. According to Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon’s biographer, he “knew that his enemies would never give him credit for saving Israel. He did it anyway.”

A proud Nixon boasted, “Christ, if it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be any Israel. They know that in Israel. Golda knows that, even though they may not know it over here.”

Nazi and Soviet Conspiracy Themes in the Palestinian Discourse: Policy Lessons for Israel

Since its founding in 1994, the Palestinian Authority, an internationally recognized pre-state authority, has advanced antisemitic themes to fuel its decades-old political warfare campaign to isolate, destabilize, and subvert the State of Israel. The PA’s antisemitic discourse, rooted in Nazi and Soviet-era conspiracy theories, has resulted in violence against Israelis and diaspora Jews. Ironically, both Israel and the international community have largely overlooked this flagrant violation of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PA: to desist from incitement to terror and violence.1 This essay documents nearly 30 years of Palestinian Authority antisemitic rhetoric in its media, social networks, official government statements, and educational system. This essay will also assess Israel’s willful blindness to these violations and offer a prescription and remedy through Israeli policy that will hold the PA to account and reform.

Since its inception in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian Authority’s source organization, has perpetuated Nazi and Soviet antisemitic tropes and conspiracy libels that characterize Israelis and Jews as racially inferior, devious, conniving, and imperialistic.2 Palestinian Arabs’ hatred of Jews has a long history. The first Palestinian Arab political leader, “Grand Mufti” Haj Amin Al-Husseini, was closely aligned with the Nazi regime and even called for the Reichstag to bomb Tel Aviv. He accused the pre-state yishuv of desecrating the al-Aqsa mosque, depicting Jewish worshippers as “evil marauders,” statements that ignited bloody anti-Jewish riots in the 1920s and 1930s.3 The PA lodges the exact charges, claiming “al-Aqsa is in danger” from “settlers storming al-Aqsa”4 – to depict peaceful Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site.

Husseini’s widely distributed sermons of the 1930s incited and spread Jew-hatred across the broader Middle East.5 His speeches on a German-based radio service in Arabic blamed Jews for World War II.6 Historian Jeffrey Herf writes, “The fusion of antisemitism with anti-Zionism was the key ideological weapon of the Nazi regime in its efforts to win support from Arabs and Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East.”7

The Mufti’s widely distributed “Proclamation to the Muslim World” rallied Muslim opposition to the Zionist project:
Since the earliest days of their history, the Jews have been an oppressed people, and there must be a good reason for that. As far back as the Egyptian pharaohs, energetic oppressive measures had to be taken against the Jews…. The Jews hate Muhammad and Islam…. The battle … began when Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina…. The Jews have been the bitterest enemies of Islam and continue to try to destroy it. They know only hypocrisy and guile. Hold together, fight for Islamic thought, fight for your religion and your existence! Do not rest until your land is free of the Jews.

Both the Fatah-led PA and its rival Islamist Hamas have perpetuated a tradition of anti-Jewish declarations, blood libel discourse, and calls to jihad against Jews based on dar al-Islam,9 blaming Jews for wars10 as a justification for killing or harming them.11 Referencing Islamic writings, Islamic clerics and spokespeople such as Raafat Alayan, the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem spokesman, consider Jews to be “sons of apes and pigs.”12 Palestinian officials have invoked accusations reminiscent of the medieval “blood libel” against Jews. Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi retweeted a medieval-themed claim that Israelis purposely drowned an Arab boy from Beit Hanina in east Jerusalem, after he slipped into a flooded area.13 In 2016, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told a European Commission assembly that Israeli rabbis told their followers to poison Arab wells, a claim that he retracted after Israeli and international condemnation.14 Abbas also falsely claimed that Adolf Hitler facilitated the immigration of Jews to Israel by reaching a deal with the Anglo-Palestine Bank (now Bank Leumi) under which Jews who moved to the British Mandate of Palestine could transfer their assets to the bank, a claim also made in his dissertation.15

Izabella Tabarovsky: "Soviet Antizionism and Contemporary Left Antisemitism" https://t.co/hgeRbTBZml
— Daniel Sadan (@RealDanSadan) September 3, 2023

The Iranian Tasnim News Agency reports:

The leader of the Islamic Al-Wafa Movement in Bahrain, Mr. Murtada Al-Sindi, affirmed that no one can guarantee the safety and stability of the Zionist entity in Bahrain.

On the implications and objectives of the visit of the Zionist entity's foreign minister, Eli Cohen, to Bahrain, the leader of the Islamic Al-Wafa Movement in Bahrain, Mr. Mortada Al-Sindi, said in a statement to the correspondent of Tasnim News Agency that the government chose its position in the struggle of the axes, and the people of Bahrain also determined their position, the government chose to be with the Zionists and a tail of Israel, while the people of Bahrain chose to be with the axis of resistance and the Palestinian cause.

Regarding the possibility of a popular resistance to the Zionist presence in Bahrain, he said, the natural reaction to the presence of the usurping entity in Bahrain is resistance and rejection, and the people of Bahrain are jealous and religious people, and all segments of Bahraini society and all sects of society have expressed their rejection of the Zionist presence, but no one guarantees that it [civil disobedience alone] will continue ...Matters are subject to escalation and may be manifested in resistance movements and factions to confront the bastard presence of the usurping Zionist entity of the holy land of Palestine.

He added that the violations and crimes committed by the Zionist entity against our brothers and loved ones in occupied Palestine turn into lava in the chests of our people, and this lava may erupt at any moment and turn into a movement of resistance to the Zionist presence in Bahrain, and no one can guarantee the Zionist entity's safety and stability in Bahrain. .

This is a threat of violence on Bahraini soil. But there is a little element of deniability, claiming that any such violence would be from regular Bahraini citizens who are fed up, not organized by Al Sindi's superiors in Iran.

Israel and Bahrain agreed to improve their trade ties today.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Learning from antisemitism 200 years ago

As my readers know, I like to look at old newspapers and see how stories from the past illuminate the present.

The Kent and Essex Mercury of September 9, 1823, has a story about how an antisemite falsely accused a Jewish pencil manufacturer of not having a license to trade in the products, but a manufacturer did not need a license. The antisemite took the Jew to court where he lost.

But there are multiple layers of antisemitism. One is the explicit antisemitism of those who look to blame Jews for any and everything they don't like. The others are more subtle.

The newspaper article, ostensibly on the side of justice, goes out if its way to depict the Jew with a stereotypical accent. (Newspapers in the 19th century regularly did this for all minorities, especially Black people.) The message is clear: we don't discriminate, but the Jews aren't really full citizens.

Similarly, Samuel Moss Solomon apparently needed the help of a kind gentile friend to vouch for him. It is implied that the judge might not have been so sympathetic if Solomon had defended himself to court.

Is this any different than the New York Times nowadays painting religious Jews as the "other" who do not fit into their respected society, where assimilated Jews are seemingly fully accepted but people whose idea of morality and priorities differs from that of the "good" Jews? Or how non-Jews defending Israel are somehow considered to be a bit more trustworthy as to their arguments compared to those of Jews, whose arguments are considered suspect from the start because they are indeed Jewish?

Antisemitism changes with circumstances, but deep down, it remains the same.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

09/04 Links Pt1: How does a Palestinian child become a terrorist?; PA building neighborhood on Joshua’s Altar site; Why Iranians Don't Hate Israel

From Ian:

The Holocaust and Iran’s nuclear program

On August 16, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a video address commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Bialystok Ghetto uprising. Blinken’s late stepfather, Samuel Pisar, participated in the revolt, which was one of the most significant acts of Jewish resistance against Nazi Germans.

The statement by a somber-looking Blinken referenced Jewish acts of “bravery” while also disclosing plans by the Biden administration to secure $1 million for establishing a “virtual tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau so that more people who can’t visit can experience the indelible impact of seeing the site.”

Efforts by Blinken and US President Joe Biden to invest in Holocaust education are laudable endeavors aimed at preserving the memory of the Shoah. Yet undergirding Blinken’s words was the administration’s announcement, less than a week earlier, that the US would unfreeze $6 billion of Iranian funds, previously held in South Korea, along with five Iranian prisoners – in exchange for five US hostages.

That Biden has spent his time in office courting an Islamic regime intent on “wiping out Israel” while also promoting a new Holocaust project is not surprising. For years, many on the Left have defaulted to a horrifying time in Jewish history and appropriated the Holocaust as a tool for Jewish placation – while simultaneously advancing policies that imperil the lives of Jews living today.

The corresponding announcements from earlier this summer proceed along a predictable pattern beginning under former US president Jimmy Carter of using the Holocaust as a foil for reorienting geopolitical dynamics against Israel. Comparisons are often made between the 39th president and America’s current leader, whose failures in foreign policy have led to America’s weakening influence abroad.

Writing in National Affairs, noted scholar Prof. Ruth Wisse details how it was officials within the Carter administration who initially pitched the idea of establishing a National Holocaust Museum when relations between president Carter and the broader Jewish community were at an all-time low. Wisse notes how Carter went public with his support for the plan after upsetting US Jewish leaders by approving the sale of F-15 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia and endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state.

Like Carter, Biden calculates references to remembering the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust around accelerating diplomatic maneuvers that risk destroying six million more. The president has made reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a cornerstone of his foreign policy agenda. Most disturbing are reports citing that the recent $6 billion deal represents only a sliver of the approximately $20 billion Iran will receive in a new “mini-deal” involving its nuclear program.

The Escalation of Palestinian Terrorism

The month of August saw continued escalation of terror in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel. The Hamas leadership (Saleh al-Arouri from Beirut and Hamas leaders from Gaza) continues to encourage Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank and to develop the terrorist infrastructure, including explosives laboratories and weapons smuggling (also with Iranian and Hezbollah assistance), and focus on the development of the terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon (with the coordination and assistance of Iran and Hezbollah). At the same time, the Palestinian Authority, which since the end of Operation Home and Garden in Jenin has begun to act with greater determination both in the Jenin region, but mainly in Nablus, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, and Ramallah, has been drawn into clashes with Palestinian youths and is seen on the Palestinian street as “collaborating with the Israeli occupation".

The scope of IDF activity in the Palestinian cities, the number of Palestinian detainees and casualties, and the massive intelligence effort are all growing. Yet alongside many impressive operations to foil terrorist activity and infrastructures, the scope of Palestinian terrorism has expanded, and continues to take a toll on Israeli citizens in the West Bank and in Israel. These trends point to the development of the terrorist system engulfing Israel since March 2022, and even more so since May 2022 with the start of Operation Break the Wave. What was mistakenly conceived as a terrorist wave did not break, and quickly developed into an expanding terror system that rests on a psychological infrastructure grounded in the consciousness of the armed struggle planted in the hearts of the young Palestinians – seared in them is the consciousness of intifada.

Alongside these, and as if influenced by the weak governance of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli governance regarding Jewish violence against Palestinians has also weakened. Worse still, this violence has in part been met by politicians who instead of denouncing it, choose to explain it, justify it, and censure IDF commanders and the head of the Israel Security Agency. Although the Palestinians do not need any justification to resort terror against Jews – they have enough reasons of their own, which we have already discussed – the policy of Israeli containment, or alternatively, the lack of the required determination and the political support needed for the required determination, add fuel to the growing fire of terrorism.

Israel is already beyond the “moment of truth.” The comfort zone that Israel has to date granted the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip and beyond is exacting an intolerable toll. Although Hamas is not the only generator of the terrorist system confronting Israel, it is certainly a significant and central element in driving and expanding this terrorist system. I believe Israel is required to take a significant military move that severely damages Hamas’s military infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. The military infrastructure is the source of Hamas's political power, and without it, Hamas will be greatly weakened. At the same time, there is no real or long-term validity to a military campaign in the Gaza Strip without a political goal and a broader and more significant political context, which the military campaign is supposed to serve. The context lies in the need to stabilize the Palestinian Authority and strengthen it in a way that allows its integration into the normalization process with Saudi Arabia and the design of the regional architecture.

How does a Palestinian child become a terrorist?

An Israeli man was stabbed and wounded in Jerusalem last week. His crime: waiting for a train while Jewish. The Palestinian Arab stabber was captured. He’s 14 years old.

How does a 14-year-old go from playing ball and doing homework to concealing a large knife in his book bag, traveling to a site where defenseless Jews are quietly waiting for a train, and then stabbing them?

The terrorist lives in Beit Hanina, an Arab neighborhood on the edge of Jerusalem. That’s within Israeli territory, but it’s just 11 kilometers from the Palestinian Authority capital of Ramallah – in other words, within broadcast range of PA Television and PA Radio.

So, this young terrorist grew up in a home where the atmosphere likely was steeped in PA TV and radio programs glorifying violence against Jews, portraying Israelis as evil monsters, and promising heavenly rewards for “martyrs” who are killed while murdering Israeli Jews.

Of course, it’s not just television and radio that influence a child’s upbringing. Parents play a major role. We don’t yet know anything about this particular stabber’s parents. But we do know that again and again, the parents of Palestinian Arab terrorists have declared their support for their children’s murderous actions.

In a memorable appearance in the PA news media a few years back, the father of 16-year-old Murad Adais declared, “I am proud of my son.”

The occasion for this burst of parental pride was not an impressive report card or doing his chores without having to be asked. No, what Murad did to bring honor to the Adais family was that he broke into the home of a young Israeli Jewish mother of six and brutally stabbed her to death.

Not long after that, the official Facebook page of the Fatah movement (the ruling faction of the PA) posted a large photo of the mother of the late Muhammed Shamasneh. She was smiling broadly and making a “V” sign with her right hand. The caption under the photo read: “How great you are, O mother of the Martyr.” Shamasneh, 22, was a Palestinian terrorist who stabbed three Jews near the Jerusalem central bus station.

From Times of Israel:

The Israeli military arrested three members of the Hamas terror group during a raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Monday morning, marking the first overt entry of forces to the camp since a major operation was carried out in the area two months ago.

In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet security agency, and Border Police said troops entered the camp and nabbed Abdullah Hassan Mohammed Sobeh, Ward Sharim, and Mus’ab Ja’aydah.

The IDF said troops opened fire at the wanted gunmen as they attempted to flee a building when the forces arrived. One of the armed Palestinians shot in the leg and seriously wounded, and was taken by helicopter to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.

An assault rifle belonging to one of the wanted Palestinians was seized, the IDF said.

The IDF said troops also responded with live fire against Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at forces in the area, and Palestinian rioters hurling stones.

A local wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group said its gunmen opened fire at Israeli forces on the outskirts of the camp.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry said four people were lightly wounded by Israeli fire in the area and taken to nearby hospitals.

No Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation.

The IDF did injured the captured terrorists, and transported them by helicopter to a hospital.

Imagine the difficulty of such an operation.

The goal, as always, is to arrest terrorists - not to kill them. The IDF knows that it will be attacked from all directions in a crowded camp that is filled with booby-traps, IEDs and angry youth with stones, firebombs and automatic weapons.

And in the end, no one was killed on either side. The terrorists were captured alive.

This must have involved many, many hours of planning, intelligence and practice.

But this result is always what the IDF wants to see. It doesn't want to kill people, but when under fire, soldiers must return fire towards the source. Nearly every person killed in the past two years were involved in fighting or members of terror groups. For urban warfare, this is incredible, and military experts know this.

But the media ignores all of that. "Human rights groups" insist on perfection in a war zone and that the IDF use peacetime, law enforcement standards when the enemy is often a heavily armed military group. As much as they can, Israel tries to live up to those standards, and it showed that today, even if it is not at all clear that the more flexible laws of armed conflict wouldn't apply to Jenin today.

The world is so obsessed with demonizing Israel that it ignores how unique it is for an army to have so few civilian casualties in urban war zones.

Try to find stories where US or British troops entered a crowded town and extracted wanted men under constant fire without killing anyone. If it has ever happened, it is incredibly rare. Yet the IDF strives to do that each and every time - and its success today proves that.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Hebrew, Yiddish, antisemitism and the New York Times

The New York Times has an op-ed by Ilan Stavans about the resilience of Yiddish, supposedly by an expert in the field. It includes some antisemitic tropes, oversimplifications, self-contradictions, outright falsehoods and ultimately reflects anti-Zionist politics more than it represents the state of Yiddish today.

For a language without a physical address that has come frighteningly close to extinction, Yiddish’s will to live seems inexhaustible. The lesson is simple and straightforward: Survival is an act of stubbornness.

Yiddish has been experiencing something of a revival. Online courses mean that anyone from Buenos Aires to Melbourne might learn to speak it. There are new translations of long-forgotten works and literary classics. A Broadway staging of “Fiddler on the Roof” was performed in Yiddish. And streaming platforms like Netflix have released series, including “Shtisel,” “Unorthodox” and “Rough Diamonds,” fully or partially in Yiddish.

Before World War II, approximately 13 million Jews, both secular and religious, spoke Yiddish. Today it is estimated that there are about a quarter of a million speakers in the United States, about the same number in Israel and roughly another 100,000 in the rest of the world. Nowadays the vast majority of those who speak the language are ultra-Orthodox. They aren’t multilingual, as secular Yiddish speakers always were.

Here is the problem with this article in a nutshell: it is written from the perspective of the relatively tiny number of secular Yiddish speakers today, and it all but ignores the real use of the language among religious Jews, which is the core of how the language is used - and more importantly, how it is evolving.

The Yiddish of the secular Jew today is an adaptation of the Yiddish of the heyday of socialist secular Yiddish newspapers in America in the early 20th century. But the vast majority of Yiddish speakers today use it in their everyday speech and as such the language continues to evolve as needed to accommodate modern life. The religious Jews speaking Yiddish are the ones who are not only keeping it alive but they are the ones who are the ones who change it. As a result, Yiddish speakers who learn the language in university courses in the US have a difficult time understanding the many dialects of Yiddish spoken in Boro Park, Mea Shearim or Bnei Brak, which includes healthy amounts of modern English or Hebrew just as local Yiddish dialects have always assimilated elements of the majority population's language.

To the secular Jew studying Yiddish, the language is a romantic throwback to the good old days of unionization of sweatshops in the Lower East Side. To the actual speakers of the language today, it is what is used in everyday life. That is where the dynamism of the language comes from - but the current class of secular Yiddishists tend to be anti-religious, and it shows.

Here are two religious Yiddish magazines published today. This is where the "interesant" things are happening to the language, not in academia or with today's secular Yiddish speakers.

The writer dismisses the "ultra-Orthodox" (itself a demeaning term) as not being multilingual as the secular Yiddish speakers were. Where does he get that from? How many American haredi or chassidic Jews do not speak English? How many Israeli chassidim cannot speak Hebrew? They might not be as fluent in their national languages as they are in Yiddish, but the vast majority can speak and understand more than one language; they couldn't survive in society otherwise. This is just one example of how Stavans subtly disparages the people who are the ones that really keep the language alive - not as a museum piece but as a living language.

It’s worth noting that Yiddish has been maligned by gentiles and Jews alike. Antisemites considered it the parlance of vermin, while the rabbinical elite deemed it unworthy of serious Talmudic discussion.

Really? The "rabbinical elite" were anti-Yiddish? What planet does he live on? Yiddish was the lingua franca of all the major European yeshivas, even after they were transplanted to America or Israel after the Holocaust. The roshei Yeshiva (yeshiva heads) from Europe gave their lessons in Yiddish as long as their students understood it, well into the 1960s and 1970s. Today's American "yeshivish" language includes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic and plenty of Yiddish along with English. And some of the "yeshivish" Yiddish has become part of modern Israeli Hebrew - such as "shkoyach" meaning "good job, itself a Yiddishization of a Hebrew term.

But the article really descends into modern antisemitism/anti-Zionism here:

Another enemy of Yiddish was Zionism. In the late 19th century, as the hope for a Jewish state found its ground, it was portrayed as jargon spoken by the diaspora — the language of homelessness, without a true national voice. To combat this deficit, Hebrew needed to be revived. Soon the myth sprung of the Hebrew pioneer, in sharp contrast with the large-nosed, hunchbacked Jew that Zionists themselves vilified.

Hebrew, which officially became the national language of the state of Israel in 1948, is spoken by about nine million people around the world. For some, the language symbolizes far-right Israeli militarism.

So according to Stavans, Zionists are antisemites who regard diaspora Jews the same way that neo-Nazis do, while modern Hebrew is the language of oppression.

This is a sick slander.

In fact, the people who initially embraced Hebrew as a modern language outside the religious context, and who rejected Yiddish, were the exact type of people that have embraced Yiddish today: the anti-religious, supposedly enlightened Jews.

Before Eliezer Ben Yehuda revived Hebrew as a modern language in Israel, there were lots of Hebrew language secular newspapers in eastern Europe. They were created by the Maskilim, the self-described "enlightened" ones, who considered Yiddish vulgar and common and tried to make Hebrew a secular language. Here's a list from the National Library of Israel of the Hebrew periodicals in their collection that existed before 1885, nearly all of them from Eastern Europe and nearly all of them secular:

And the first cover of one famous Haskalah newspaper from 1860, trying to attract the Yiddish speaking public to Hebrew:

These secular European Jews abandoned Hebrew for Yiddish at the same time that Zionists embraced and modernized Hebrew, around the 1890s. As described by the American Israelite in a requiem for Hebrew secular literature in 1906:

And while the current secular Yiddishists are often anti-Israel, the Israeli government is doing more to preserve Yiddish than they are, having created a National Authority on Yiddish Culture in 1996.

Another point about at least some of the secular Jews in Israel at the turn of the 20th century. Many of them opposed the idea of Hebrew being the official language of a Jewish state, and instead lobbied for the official language to be - German.

In contrast, Yiddish represents exile — a longing for home.

This is the problem of the modern, anti-Zionist Yiddishists in a nutshell. Stavans cannot even understand how this sentence is self-contradictory. Exile is by definition being away from home. To people like Stavans, Yiddish is Jewishness - but it is as transient as symbol of Jewishness as cuisine or dance. Yiddish is something that should be studied and remembered. but it is a tiny slice of the richness of Judaism throughout the millennia and throughout the world.

In Israel, the choice to standardize Hebrew as the language of the state was partially prompted, and later vindicated, by the Mizrahi Jews in the land who did not know Yiddish and who eventually became the majority. The only thing that Jews throughout the world have in common is Hebrew, not Yiddish.

The history of Yiddish among secular Jews is much more complex and ambivalent than is described here. This article promotes a myth of secular Jews having always used Yiddish as their preferred language when in fact they used it for political purposes - as they continue to do today. It is the despised religious Jews who keep the language relevant, alive and vibrant today, while the author of this article keeps Yiddish in a romanticized amber of a century ago.

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It's happening again:

A delegation of top American officials is slated to travel to Riyadh this week to meet with Saudi counterparts in order to discuss a potential normalization agreement between the Gulf kingdom and Israel, a US official and a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel on Sunday.

The visit by White House Middle East czar Brett McGurk and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf will come just over a month after US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan visited Saudi Arabia with the same objective, pointing to Washington’s continued determination to broker an elusive deal. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also visited Riyadh on the same mission in June.

McGurk and Leaf’s visit will overlap with that of a Palestinian delegation led by Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee secretary-general Hussein al-Sheikh, who will be in Riyadh to discuss what Ramallah is hoping to obtain from a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal, the two officials said.

So the US is speaking to Saudi Arabia about conditions on Israel to accept a normalization deal.

The US is speaking to Palestinians about conditions on Israel to accept a normalization deal.

The Palestinians are speaking to the Saudis about conditions on Israel to accept a normalization deal.

Everyone is speaking to each other - about Israel, but not to Israel.

Are there backchannels from Israel to Saudi Arabia? Probably. Is the Israeli government in charge of these backchannels?

We have no idea.

But we do know that the Biden administration and the Palestinians are not keen to negotiate with Netanyahu, so my guess is that some Israeli peacenik organization is leading the backchannel negotiations with the intent to manipulate the Israeli government, not to appease it, about what strings would be attached to the deal.

Maybe I'm being a bit too sensitive after reading the Gidi Grinstein book I reviewed on Sunday and how a backchannel was used by the Israeli Left, the US and Palestinians to collude to bring down Netanyahu in his first term, but the impression I am getting is that a purpose of these negotiations may include finding a way to make the current coalition government fall, something that would being a sigh of relief to the Americans, the Palestinians and not a small number of Israelis.

Holding these meetings in Saudi Arabia is a convenient way to exclude Israeli officials who cannot officially travel to the kingdom. But all other negotiations between Israel and its erstwhile peace partners took place in neutral territory - Europe or the US.

Excluding Israel from these talks seems to be a way to marginalize the Jewish state and put it on its back foot when the offer is revealed - a deal that, it appears, will be all but imposed on Israel rather than one that Israel has a say in. If Israel refuses an offer backed by the US, Saudis and tacitly Palestinians it will look like an intransigent player who only pretends to want peace. If Israel accepts a bad deal, the government probably will fall.

It feels like deja vu.,

Most Israelis and Zionists would love to see Saudi normalization, myself included. Every new revelation makes me wonder if the price would be too high - especially when the major benefits of peace are already effectively there.

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Terror groups support UN Rapporteur. That's all you need to know.

The Hamas website says:

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas has hailed the position of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese condemning the flagrant Israeli violations against the Palestinian people, especially the collective punishment policy.

Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif al-Qanoa called on the international community and UN and human rights organisations to put this condemnation into action and to take practical steps towards holding the Israeli occupation leaders accountable for their crimes and violations against the Palestinian people.

Now, there is a ringing endorsement!

Oh, and Hamas is also a fan of a Belgian minister who accused Israel of "wiping entire Palestinian villages off the map." And in the past it has loved Human Rights Watch and Amnesty reports.

Terror groups have lots of allies in the West, none of whom ever seem to want to dissociate themselves from them.

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09/03 Links: The Conveniently Forgotten Context of Israel's Six-Day War; Human Rights Watch’s jihad against Israel; Anti-Zionist Professors Force Stalinism into the Academy

From Ian:

The Conveniently Forgotten Context of Israel's Six-Day War

This is Part 6 of a 10-part series exposing the underreported joint European and Palestinian program to bypass international law and establish a de facto Palestinian state on Israeli land.

In 1967, Israel fought a monumental six-day war with its neighbors, who invaded the small country in a combined military assault with the declared goal of wiping the Jewish state off the map.

To the amazement of the international community, Israel emerged victorious, gaining control over multiple territories, including the West Bank.

Historically known as Judea and Samaria and once home to a thriving Jewish population, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan without international approval from 1948 to 1967. In that time, the Hashemite Kingdom ethnically cleansed its Jewish residents and destroyed dozens of synagogues.

It renamed the region the “West Bank,” meaning west of the Jordan River, to sever any Jewish connection to the land in an attempt to legitimize its occupation of territory that was never within its internationally recognized borders.

When Israel wrested control of the West Bank from Jordan in 1967, it refrained from annexing the territory, immediately offering to exchange land for peace.

This unprecedented overture was met with three resounding “NO’s” at the infamous 1967 Arab Summit in Khartoum: “no recognition, no negotiations, and no peace with Israel.” Consequently, the West Bank came under Israeli military rule.

“For reasons I can’t begin to explain, Israel thought it could make everyone happy. That’s how this whole monster was created,” says Naomi Kahn, international director of Regavim.

The monster she is referring to is the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, otherwise known as Israel’s Civil Administration, a unit of the Defense Ministry established to govern the local population in Area C and manage all issues pertaining to civilians, both Jewish and Arab.

Instead of extending Israeli law to the territory liberated in 1967, Israel’s leaders chose to “temporarily” maintain the existing legal framework until a negotiated solution with the Arabs could be reached. To this day, the Commander of the Central Region, rather than elected representatives, retains the ability to legislate and administer Area C.

Setting The Record Straight: Part XI: “Palestinian H-bombs”

Of the eight Palestinian Arab-Israeli conflicts, the second intifada was the seventh and the “third bloodiest,” asserts Samuel M. Katz, a Middle East security and international terrorism expert. Most wars are waged to attain political goals or to seize other countries’ land. Yet, Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and the Hamas leadership had no plan to force political concessions from Israel, establish new territorial realities, or offer a pragmatic solution to end the carnage that was never even recognized as a total war. One objective seemed to be to inflict as much pain and suffering in Israel as they could. [4]

In pursuit of the goal of causing the greatest harm to Israel, the Palestinian Arabs deliberately planned attacks that would produce a catastrophic number of deaths without the slightest fear of international censure or retribution. The terrorists never wore uniforms and did not conduct their activities in the open. Often, they hid among the local population, using civilians as human shields. [5]

The support of suicide bombings was not an impulsive decision by the Palestinian Arabs. At the beginning of the second intifada, known as the al-Aqsa Intifada, which erupted on September 29, 2000, in the Old City of Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip, the Arabs used the same strategy employed by Hizballah to force the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to leave southern Lebanon—a combination of ambushes, drive-by shootings, and assaults on IDF outposts. The goal was to convince the Israeli public to regard these areas as liabilities and to compel the government to vacate them. [6]

Yasser Arafat Confirms Ultimate Objective
Yasser Arafat confirmed this goal and to drive Jews out of Israel in a discussion about the use of political warfare, its implication, and potential threat, in an interview in the Lebanese daily, An-Nahar on August 2, 1968. Historian Efraim Karsh who found the interview, said Arafat outlined the strategic objective of the organization as “the transfer of all the bases of resistance” in Judea, Samaria, the Gaza Strip, and areas which Israel took control during the [1967 Six Day] war, “in order to transform in stages the opposition into a popular revolutionary army.” Therefore, Arafat said, the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] could “hinder immigration and encourage the emigration of Israelis from the country … ruin tourism … weaken the Israeli economy in forcing Israelis to budget a large part of their resources for security purposes … the creation and maintenance of an atmosphere of tension and anxiety which would cause the Zionists to understand that they could not live in Israel,” — in a word, disrupt the Israeli way of life.” [7]

In an address entitled “The Impending Collapse of Israel,” Yasser Arafat addressed a secret meeting of leading Arab diplomats in Stockholm’s Grand Hotel on January 30, 1996, at which he reportedly declared: There will be a massive influx of Arabs to “the West Bank and Jerusalem,” and that the psychological warfare the Palestinian Arabs will conduct against the Israelis will precipitate a massive emigration of Jews to the United States. “We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem” and claimed,”[Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin involved in negotiation of 1993 Oslo Accords] have already promised us half of Jerusalem. The Golan Heights have already been given away, subject to just a few details.” [8]

Additionally, Arafat alleged that half of the Russian immigrants to Israel are actually Muslims, and after the expected civil war in Israel erupts, these Muslims will fight for a united Palestinian State.” He then said: “We of the PLO will now concentrate all our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps. Within five years, we will have six to seven million Arabs living on the West Bank and in Jerusalem. All Palestinian Arabs will be welcomed by us. If the Jews can import all kinds of Ethiopians, Russians, Uzbeks and Ukrainians as Jews, we can import all kinds of Arabs to us.” He added that the PLO plans “to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; Jews won’t want to live among us Arabs.” [9]

In an appeal for pan-Arab support, he assured the Arab diplomats: “I have no use for Jews; they are and remain Jews! We now need all the help we can get from you in our battle for a united Palestine under total Arab-Muslim domination!” [10]

Bassam Tawil: Human Rights Watch’s jihad against Israel

Each time HRW publishes an anti-Israel report, one cannot help recalling the damning criticism of the organization by its own founder and longtime chairman, the late Robert L. Bernstein.

In a 2009 opinion piece in The New York Times, Bernstein lashed out at HRW over its obsession with Israel:
“Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world, many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he wrote.

“Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

“Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

“Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.”

Although Bernstein’s criticism was published more than a decade ago, HRW continues to prove that his every word remains as relevant today as it was then. HRW’s ongoing obsession with Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, serves as a reminder that the organization is on the side of the terrorists who appear as committed to killing Americans (here, here and here) and other Westerners, as to destroying Israel and killing Jews.

As the United States approaches the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we see Islamic State virtually doubling the territory it controls in Mali, in addition to other terror threats.

The HRW reports are no less dangerous than the non-stop incitement to violence by Hamas and PIJ on Al Manar, Al Jazeera Arabic, or by the regimes of Qatar and Iran. Such reports provide ammunition to Iran and its proxies to pursue their murderous campaign against Israel and the West, and reveal that HRW is not all that different from the Palestinian terrorists and their patrons in Iran.

Was Jordan behind Abbas' recent mass firing of envoys and governors?

The Media Line reports:

After PA President Mahmoud Abbas fired 12 provincial governors and 35 foreign envoys, analysts say it is Jordan that has pushed him for changes out of concern for the stability of the entity on its border. Further overhauls may lie ahead.

Rumors of imminent changes within the Palestinian Authority government continue to swirl, despite official denials from Ramallah.

Earlier this month, PA President Mahmoud Abbas fired 12 provincial governors in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in what many say is part of an “overhaul” in personnel in the political and security structure. The shakeup continued some days later with the announcement of the retirement of 35 of his foreign envoys, all of them over the age of 65.

Experts believe the dismissals are an attempt to promote newer leadership and quell increasing domestic, regional, and international criticism of the PA.

Ramallah-based political analyst Esmat Mansour told The Media Line that Abbas’s visit to Jordan contributed to the speed with which he carried out the firings.

“It is not possible for the president to ignore Arab advice, as well as international demands, out of fear for the future and fate of the PA,” Mansour said.

Analysts say the Palestinian leadership is scrambling to appease regional players while satisfying the disgruntled Palestinian street, which sees the PA as ineffective, incompetent, and a tool in the hands of Israel.

“Abbas is trying through these decisions to give the impression that he is still influential and in control of things, and that change comes by his own will and is not imposed on him by anyone,” Mansour said.

As part of the shakeup, Abbas is planning a limited cabinet shuffle in the next few weeks, according to Palestinian media outlets. This may affect the current prime minister.

The only part that makes sense is that Abbas wanted to project the idea that he is still in charge. But firing governors and envoys does not change the main challenges he faces - the loss of control by the PA security forces and the lack of elections.

Ironically, Abbas fired a lot of the older people working for him in favor of youth, but he himself remains the 87-year old dictator above all.

It is true the PA has been trying a little harder to assert security control over areas that had been effectively ceded to terror groups. I can certainly see Jordan pushing for that, since security chaos would affect Jordan as well.

Abbas met with the heads of his security services last week to emphasize the importance of the "rule of law.".

But these changes are really just re-arranging the deck chairs of the Titanic.

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Diplomacy and peacemaking is not a smooth process. It requires a huge amount of preparation, planning and flexibility.

It is always illuminating to look behind the scenes of the Oslo process. Gidi Grinstein, the youngest person at Camp David in 2000, is releasing his account of the events that he witnessed as well as his opinions of what to do moving forward to mark the 30th anniversary of Oslo.

His book, "(In)sights: Thirty Years of Peacemaking in the Oslo Process" is his attempt to set the record straight after so many others gave their own versions of what happened at Camp David.

Grinstein writes from the perspective of someone who truly wants to see peace. No one can doubt his love of Israel and Zionism - he was part of the team that founded Birthright Israel - but his perspective is decidedly on the Israeli Left.

I found his account fascinating, but perhaps not for the reasons he intended.

Obviously Grinstein tries to spin the events towards his own politics. Instead of giving a straight chronological account of what happened, he spends a great deal of time on the "sausage" behind each negotiating point and then an overview of what has happened since then, along with his own opinions as to where things failed and what Israel should have done instead, in retrospect.

While Grinstein was the junior member at Camp David, he is perhaps the one person with the most knowledge of the big picture. He served as the Secretary and Coordinator of the Israeli Delegation for the Negotiations with the PLO from 1999-2001 under Ehud Barak.

Grinstein admires Barak a great deal, but his description of Barak is of someone who is cold and calculating, who is more than willing to throw his own people under the bus for his own ends. He keeps his own cards close to his vest, so no one working for him has a clear idea of what their goals are. Grinstein extols Barak as "the smartest man in the room" who keeps his people working in a "matrix" of smaller tasks, while only Barak knows his real plan. This means that Barak creates his own backchannels to undermine the people officially working for him when he deems it necessary, he bypasses the chain of command, and he ensures plausible deniability.

Which, when you think about it, is a lot like Yasir Arafat.

Before he worked for the Prime Minister's office, Grinstein worked for the Economic Cooperation Foundation. The ECF, founded in 1990, was itself one of those backchannels for creating relationships with, and building a peace plan with, the PLO. It was a power that helped bring about the Oslo Accords.

To me, one of the most jarring parts of the book was where Grinstein describes how the ECF helped end Bibi Netanyahu's first term as prime minister. The ECF, which worked hand in glove with Yitzchak Rabin, opposed Netanyahu - and this Israeli think-tank colluded with the PLO to bring him down. Netanyahu demanded more concessions from the PLO in order to keep the Oslo process going, and the ECF convinced their friends in the PLO to pretend to agree to Netanyahu's demands, prompting him to sign the Hebron Agreement and the Wye River Memorandum based on lies. This caused the right wing of his coalition to revolt and new elections were called that brought Barak into office, just as the ECF intended.

Grinstein seemingly has no compunction about Israelis collaborating with the US and PLO to bring down an Israeli prime minister. The cause of peace justifies all.

Even Grinstein admits that the peace negotiators never really seriously thought about the possibility that Arafat had no intention to really sign a permanent agreement that would end the conflict and what would follow. They became friends with the PLO negotiators, and he lovingly describes how well his team would be treated when they visited Bethlehem or Ramallah and the personal friendships they struck up with the Palestinian team. He mentions and is fully aware of the wave of terror attacks during the 1990s, Arafat's incendiary speeches in Arabic, his actions being fully consistent with his "phased plan" to destroy Israel, but all of that is brushed aside in the pursuit of peace, just as using underhanded methods to bring down an Israeli prime minister is framed as a positive thing.

The only person who predicted the failure of the Oslo process, and that it would lead into war, was US Ambassador to Egypt Daniel Kurtzer, who hosted the negotiators for a Shabbat dinner. He had better insight than the entire Israeli peace delegation, who didn't even consider this.

Barak bet everything on the idea that Arafat could be pressured into signing an agreement. He was wrong. But there is very little hand-wringing on that mistake that brought about the second intifada. In fact, Grinstein emphasizes that Arafat was not the direct instigator of the intifada - even as he admits that Arafat had planned for such an event months ahead of time, and that his own security forces, trained and armed by the US, turned their weapons against Israeli forces in the first days of the fighting. He emphasizes that Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount that supposedly triggered the war was fully coordinated with the PA but still doesn't blame the PA for its role - instead noting that the Jerusalem police response to the violence helped escalate it.

Again, Grinstein isn't blind. But he seems to purposely keep one eye closed.

Similarly, he emphasizes that, in retrospect, Barak should not have pushed for an all or nothing deal, and worked towards a provisional Palestinian state that could be further refined with later negotiations. This, of course, would have been a huge concession by Israel to recognize a Palestinian state up front. But while he praises the Quartet for employing that idea in their Road Map for Peace, he glosses over that the Palestinian leaders rejected the Road Map out of hand, and have consistently said that they do not want a provisional state.

Also jarring is that, as far as I can tell, the Israeli peace negotiating teams -- both Track I and Track II - apparently were exclusively made up of non-religious males, overwhelmingly if not exclusively Ashkenazic. He notes that the only Israeli woman at Camp David was a secretary. He never mentions that any of the participants in the many meals hosted in the West Bank or Europe had to make accommodations for kosher food. Most of Israeli society is not represented by these peacemakers, who all seem to believe that they are smarter than anyone else in how to look at the big picture, and not really self-critical when it comes to their miscalculations and false assumptions that led to the failure of the peace process. Diversity was not a priority for these liberals.

There is a lot of good information in this book, and it is illuminating - sometimes in ways that it is not meant to be. It is not edited well, unfortunately - for example, it talks extensively about the ECF without explaining what it is, and there are still numerous typos and misspellings (French Premier "Shirak"), it repeats the same anecdotes a couple of times. Hopefully these will be fixed by the time it goes to press.

The book is planned to be released in Israel in two weeks and in the US in December.

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